


I've Done what my Mother Did

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I guess this is a Harry Potter au?, Love, M/M, Sacrifice, The Trials, They love each other, but they didn't do the swap, enjoy this for what it is I guess, idk I've never done a crossover before, it makes use of Harry Potter lore but there aren't any Harry Potter characters, my own take on "what if they didn't do the swap but lived anyway"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: They didn’t swap corporations; Aziraphale came up with a different idea for escaping retribution. He’s picked up a thing or two in his centuries of study.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 356





	I've Done what my Mother Did

Aziraphale’s hands gripped the arms of the chair. Heaven surrounded him, large and white and empty; it was cold, not the blustery cold of London but a deep, still, glacial cold that said _you are not welcome here. This is not for you._

Of course, he’d been here before. He’d felt this hostile cold since Eden, every time he had to give a report to Gabriel and the others - he’d worked to keep from shivering in this stark, harsh brightness for thousands of years. But it had never been quite this pronounced. 

“So,” said Gabriel. His eyes were glittering, Aziraphale thought - actually _glittering_ , the contempt and the disgust in them barely diminished by a thin veneer of politeness. “So, it’s all come down to this.”

“I suppose it has.” Aziraphale gave a small, tight smile. 

“You’re a traitor. A deserter. You abandoned your post, you abandoned Heaven - you fraternized with a _demon_ , of all the disgusting things.” Gabriel grimaced. “You took away Heaven’s incoming victory over Darkness, and ensured the survival of the fallen Earth. All because you wanted to keep eating your - your crepes. Have we got all that right?” 

Aziraphale swallowed. He fidgeted in the chair where they’d bound him, then forced himself to sit still; damn it all, this was for Crowley, and he was not going to show weakness now.

“It sounds mostly right,” he said. “Except I wouldn’t call it ‘fraternizing.’” 

“Whatever you call it. An affair, if you like.” Gabriel glowered at him. The amount of hatred - pure, undiluted _hatred_ \- in his eyes at those words was nearly staggering. 

Aziraphale had been prepared for this. He’d known just how the angels would treat him, once they knew the truth, once they knew he’d dared stoop to be friends with a demon. To try to protect him, to go to him rather than help Heaven with their war. He’d spent long hours with Crowley, talking, just talking, and crying, and he’d worked it all out. 

He didn’t let his face betray any hurt now. Instead he gave Gabriel another quiet smile, and sat still. 

“You know what’s going to happen to you, I trust,” said Sandalphon. His voice was gleeful, and Aziraphale’s mind tilted backwards, flashing over long-suppressed scenes of destruction - Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed, with that same gleeful voice overseeing the proceedings. Sandalphon’s same blandly smiling face.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, “I can guess.” 

Gabriel smiled at something behind Aziraphale’s head. A moment later someone new came into view - someone clad in black, carrying something in his hands that smouldered and smoked and hissed.

“Hellfire,” said the demon. “Just like you asked for.”

“Right there.” Gabriel indicated a spot on the floor between him and Aziraphale, and the demon grinned as he dumped out the flame, stepping back to watch as it rose to the ceiling. Aziraphale averted his eyes. 

Even from here, the flames were hot. Not the hot of an August sun or a fireplace, but an itching, scorching kind of hot, a kind of hot that sent all of Aziraphale’s angelic instincts on edge. A hot that made him want desperately to keep away. From the other side of the fire he saw Sandalphon’s smirk, and Gabriel’s smirk, and even Uriel had something close to amused excitement in her eyes. 

“So I’m to die,” Aziraphale said. “Just for… just for being friends with a demon.” 

They said nothing. For a moment no one moved; the demon who had delivered the fire backed away again, leaving this to the angels. Then Uriel moved forward to release Aziraphale from his chair. 

“Think of it this way,” said Gabriel, as though he were being generous. “You might feel a little closer to that stupid demon, for a minute.” 

Aziraphale’s wrists were freed. He didn’t look at Uriel. He didn’t look at Gabriel. He had eyes only for the fire in front of him - only for the itching, scorching feeling of it, telling his skin and his nerves and his soul to run. Telling him that it was capable of destroying his very essence, of rendering him a non-being. Telling him there was, after all, something like death for an angel too.

_Closer to that stupid demon._ Yes, that was rather what he was hoping for. 

_____

They led him before Beelzebub with his hands tied together. Crowley didn’t listen to Hastur’s long litany of supposed crimes; they hadn’t even figured out he lied to them about the Spanish Inquisition, and until they got a little smarter than _that_ he wasn’t interested in defending himself to them. Instead he stood perfectly still, hyper-aware (though he wouldn’t show it) of the bathtub that sat behind him.

It was as good as a declaration of what they planned to do. Crowley wasn’t surprised, couldn’t be surprised, when Michael appeared with the pitcher. 

“Demon Crowley,” said Beelzebub, from their throne. Crowley nodded, like he was paying attention, though every one of his senses was straining to observe nothing but the holy water. “I sentence you to extinction.” 

“Mmmm,” said Crowley, and fastened his eyes on the pitcher.

It didn’t glow, not exactly. There wasn’t any holy light emanating from the water itself. But it _glinted_ \- picked up every tiny scrap of light in the room and shattered it and flung it back ten times brighter. It seemed to cut straight into his eyes even protected as they were behind his sunglasses. Yet he couldn’t simply look away; he was transfixed by it as much as he was horrified. That thing, shifting and splashing around in Michael’s pitcher, was capable of wiping him out completely. 

He watched it fall in a graceful arc from the pitcher to the tub, as Michael, face impassive, looked away from it; he thought he could feel, even from here, the deadly power that substance emanated. 

This was where it all led to. He’d always known Hell’s final weapon against him would be holy water; that was why he’d needed some of his own, a counter-weapon, from Aziraphale. That was why he’d always had the trap ready, the pieces assembled, for when his higher-ups in Hell inevitably came looking for him. But it hadn’t been enough. Surviving a fight wasn’t enough. He ought to have known that, eventually, Hell was going to get the better of him. 

He ought to have known that wielding his own weapon wasn’t going to be the final answer. 

“Anything to say?” Beelzebub asked.

Crowley didn’t look at them. Fear was churning in his stomach, but he worked to calm it; this wasn’t, after all, what he’d expected. He’d figured this ultimate end would come by surprise, his life continuing as he’d always known it until one day the charade couldn’t keep up anymore. But that wasn’t what this was, at all. This was journeying down into Hell after Aziraphale had admitted he loved him. This was his trial, after he and Aziraphale had spent that night in his flat, and settled, at last, on their own side. This was, if it could ever be said, the _right_ moment. 

“I don’t regret it,” said Crowley. “That’s all.” 

Hastur’s hands were on his shoulders. Leading him toward the water. Crowley shut his eyes for a moment behind the sunglasses, confident no one could see, and shared a secret smile with himself. 

_____

_“We’ll have to decide what we’re going to do,” Aziraphale said. “When they come for us.”_

_Crowley grimaced. “Yeah. Can’t hold them off forever.” Much as he’d have liked to think their troubles were over, after the events of today, he knew Hell better than that. Knew Heaven better than that, too. Even the combined abilities of him and Aziraphale, in terms of getting away with things, couldn’t possibly shield them forever from this._

_“I’ve done research,” said Aziraphale, and settled his hands in his lap, in that adorable fussy way he did when his thoughts turned academic. “From all I’ve read, there doesn’t seem to be any method of granting demons immunity to holy water.”_

_Crowley didn’t ask Aziraphale to clarify when that particular research had taken place. He could still hardly believe Aziraphale had thought, for a hundred years, that Crowley planned to kill himself - could hardly believe that Aziraphale had only at last relented when Crowley appeared to be putting himself in danger. The thought of it still made something ache deep in his chest. But it didn’t matter now._

_“There’s even less about angels and hellfire,” Aziraphale continued. “The use of hellfire as a weapon - well, it isn’t nearly as well-documented, seeing as most human beings aren’t interested in finding weapons to use against angels.”_

_“Idiot humans,” Crowley cracked, and Aziraphale smiled - hardly even an uncomfortable smile. An agreeing, almost a conspiratorial smile. That made the spot in Crowley’s chest ache harder. “So, what does that leave us with?”_

_“As far as literature on angels and demons and miracles go,” said Aziraphale, “it leaves us with nothing.”_

_Crowley glanced up into Aziraphale’s eyes. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything. He could see the barely-suppressed excitement behind Aziraphale’s words. His angel had an idea, and slowly Crowley could feel a smile spread across his face as he waited for it to spill out._

_“But,” Aziraphale said. “But. I’ve done other research.”_

_Crowley raised an eyebrow._

_“There are other forms of power, besides ours.” Aziraphale was fully leaning forward now, his hands no longer folded but fluttering around him. “I never thought it would matter. It’s not - well, it doesn’t seem to be as powerful as our magic is. It requires all sorts of incantations and tools and - quite silly human things. But there’s magic that humans use. Magic they’ve kept secret for hundreds of years.”_

_Crowley’s eyes widened. “Human magic?”_

_“That’s right.” Aziraphale’s eyes sparkled._

_“They…”_

_“They worked it out, Crowley. And some of it…” Aziraphale stood, crossing the room to Crowley, kneeling beside him as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Taking his hands, which made Crowley’s heart begin to pound, as though he’d done it a thousand times._

_“Some of it what?” Crowley breathed._

_“Some of it, some ancient, ancient pieces, are beyond anything I’ve seen in Heaven.” Aziraphale squeezed his fingers. “Things that deal with - with experiences angels can’t understand.”_

_“Like…”_

_“Like death.”_

_Crowley gazed down at Aziraphale. His mind was working, slowly, to keep up with Aziraphale’s words. To put them together into something resembling coherence. “Death?”_

_“Death and love.”_

_His heart pounded harder._

_“And sacrifice.”_

_A million words seemed piled up behind those Aziraphale had spoken. Crowley felt their onslaught against him like a breaking wave; he felt the emotions Aziraphale hadn’t spoken, trembling through their intertwined fingers, running from Aziraphale’s hands to Crowley’s, a tentative offering. A secret whispered from palm to palm._

_“Go on,” Crowley said._

_____

Aziraphale took a step toward the hellfire. He swallowed, hard, and focused a tiny piece of his angelic power - hardly a miracle, only a freeing of his awareness - below him, down toward the bowels of Hell. 

_I sentence you to extinction,_ he heard, in the voice of Lord Beelzebub. 

He saw a dark room, a towering throne, a glass through which a glowering crowd hissed at Crowley. He saw a glimmering bathtub, and Crowley being led toward it. 

He took another step. The hellfire was near enough now that he thought an ember of it might jump out and catch his sleeve. He tried to keep up his focus and time his steps with Crowley’s; tried to keep his distance from the hellfire the same as Crowley’s from the holy water. 

“Into the flame,” Gabriel’s voice said. “We don’t have all day.” 

Aziraphale didn’t answer.

_Into the water_ , said Hastur, below. 

_____

Crowley’s chest rose and fell shallowly. He couldn’t help it. It couldn’t look dignified, but he had no room left to consider how he looked to the rest of these demons. All he could think about was his tenuous awareness of Aziraphale, far above, approaching his punishment at the same pace Crowley approached his own. 

“Into the water,” said Hastur. He pulled the ropes from Crowley’s wrists and gestured grandly, a sort of mocking send-off.

Crowley found the courage to smirk at him. 

Aziraphale was inches away from his punishment in Heaven. Crowley felt it, saw it far in the back of his mind. 

His heart beat, just as it had in his flat after that bus ride. It beat so hard it threatened to burst from his chest. But this wasn’t a fearful beating; the fear was in his stomach, churning there like some diseased thing. No, in his heart there was nothing but certainty.

_____

Certainty. Aziraphale moved closer, feeling the blistering heat on his skin. 

_I would die for him._

If this was to be his punishment for choosing Crowley - if diving out of Heaven to find his demon meant death, extinction, obliteration - then he’d dive again and again and again, in a million lifetimes, in a million ways. If hellfire was the cost of his love, he’d drink it like wine into his veins. He’d never cringe away from it. 

Never. 

_____

Certainty. If Hell wanted to drown him for daring to love an angel, then Crowley would drown. He’d always known it. He’d always, in a way, been ready. 

Crowley concentrated, timed his movements just right. He lifted one leg, graceful as he could, like a dancer. He grinned out at all the inhabitants of Hell who had just pronounced him guilty. 

And he thought of Aziraphale, of protecting him - of running over consecrated ground, of sneaking into the Bastille, of a quick, finger-snap miracle that shielded his precious books - of circling him, for decades and centuries, his eyes on the lookout for anyone that could cause them harm, his body always ready to fling itself between his angel and any adversary. He thought of wrapping his arms tight around Aziraphale, as he had, that night, after everything else was said. 

He thought of Aziraphale walking calmly through the hellfire, unhurt, unburned. He thought of this final act of his, that would put his own life once more between Aziraphale and danger. 

_____

And Aziraphale thought of those clever, clever humans, who always understood, so much better than Heaven ever had, the true meaning of goodness and light and love. Those humans who had suffered so much since leaving the Garden, who were fated, each and every one, to live such brief and beautiful and fast-moving lives. 

Death, and love, and sacrifice. Of course for them it was all bound up into one.

This magic of theirs was more profound than any miracle. 

Aziraphale thought of Crowley sinking into holy water without injury. He pictured the magic of his love coiling around Crowley like a snake, shielding him from any power that might have destroyed him. Cradling him in a spell so ancient even Aziraphale didn’t know when it had begun. 

_I would die for him._

He took his final step. 

_____

Crowley’s other foot left the ground, and he fell easily into the tub. 

_____

Flames around him, tearing at him, loud and hungry.

_____

Water reaching tendrils up to pull the atoms of Crowley’s essence apart. 

_____

_This is for him. He’s protected now._

_____

_He’ll be safe._

_____

_They can’t touch him._

_____

_My life for his._

_____

_It’s over._

_____

. . .

_____

A second passed. Two, three. 

Then Aziraphale opened his eyes. 

He was in the fire. It still surrounded him, still roaring in his ears as it had only moments ago. Yet it didn’t hurt - it hadn’t hurt, at any point, stepping inside. His clothes were unsinged, immaculate. Not a hair on his head was out of place. 

Gabriel, Uriel, and Sandalphon stood gaping from the other side of the fire. He smiled, a warm, wide smile, almost perfectly friendly. Almost instinctively Gabriel took a step backward. 

_“If someone dies for you,” Aziraphale explained, “you can’t be hurt afterwards. And it works even if the person doesn’t actually die - as long as they intended to, as long as they didn’t defend themself. I’ve heard of one very memorable time it’s happened before.”_

_“Yeah? One of the humans?”_

_“A boy. Only a few years ago it happened. Most people don’t know anything about it, but among these human magic-users, he’s famous.”_

“It can’t be,” Gabriel said, his voice sounding strained and thin. 

Still smiling broadly, Aziraphale stepped out of the fire again, making them all flinch as he moved closer. He dusted soot gently off his shoulders, then straightened his sleeves. Their faces were blanched and pale.

“I think,” he said, still friendly, “it would be best if I was left alone, in future. Don’t you?” 

_____

Crowley raised twin middle fingers at the denizens of Hell as he sat, comfortable, at the bottom of the tub.

“This isn’t possible,” Beelzebub growled. 

Crowley turned to smirk at them. “Really, Lord Beelzebub. I’ve been saying this for years. You people need to start innovating.” 

Beelzebub’s eyes widened. Hastur’s eyes widened. They all had their eyes practically popping out of their skulls, watching him just sit there in holy water, still whole and unharmed. Protected. Not blessed, nothing to do with Heaven - but protected, yes. Guarded. 

“Using holy water to get rid of demons. What is this, the middle ages?” Crowley clambered to his feet, then swung himself dripping back onto dry ground. “Of course I’m immune to that stuff by now. You’re really going to have to try harder to get rid of me.” 

“But - but -” Hastur spluttered. 

“If this is _honestly_ the best you’ve got,” said Crowley, “you might as well send me home.” 

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as they cringed away from him. Oh, Aziraphale always knew his magic, of course he did. A double sacrifice. He’d given up his life for Aziraphale; Aziraphale had given his for Crowley. They didn’t defend themselves. They’d shielded each other from retribution. 

No one objected when he sauntered out of Hell, upward towards Earth. 

_____

No one objected when Aziraphale took the lift back down. 

_____

When they met up again in St. James’ park, they sat on the same bench, and they held hands. Not a word was spoken between them, then; nothing needed to be said. They had no need for wide declarations, no need for laughter or for tears, no need for thanks. Instead they simply rested against each other, and stared out at the bright, sunny day around them. 

“We’re free now,” said Crowley. “Really free.”

Aziraphale smiled. “On our own side.” 

Crowley looked around at the people in the park, walking to and fro, as he leaned his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. He wondered if any one of them was hiding a wand somewhere in their sleeve, if any one of them had ever seen that strange and fantastical school Aziraphale had told him about. If any one had heard about that boy who’d saved a school doing what his mother had once, longer ago, done for him. 

“And on their side, too,” said Crowley. 

Aziraphale nodded. “Yes. Theirs.” 

They toasted the world, later, when they dined at the Ritz. They toasted the beauty of the thing they’d saved. But they toasted themselves, too - toasted six thousand years, and an escape from Heaven and Hell, and a love that could overcome anything, anything. They raised their glasses of champagne with pride and toasted themselves. Aziraphale and Crowley, guardian and serpent - the angel and the demon who lived.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Find me on tumblr @[whatawriterwields](https://whatawriterwields.tumblr.com)!


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